A Missionary Serving in the
Oklahoma City Mission
and the
Argentina Resistencia Mission

Monday, June 9, 2014

You're Never Going to Guess . . . .

You're never going to guess . . . I'm staying in Goya! I'll be here for another transfer with Elder Valdez and we're super excited about this transfer and all the new missionaries we have. Do you remember Elder Zivic? He was my companion in Fontana and now he's in our district! He was also Elder Valdez' companion a transfer ago! We had a nice little reunion with him we have another Elder in our district (Guajardo) to is from Texas that served in our district when we were the DLs in Fontana. It's just great to already know some of these guys and the Ibertta Zone is taking over Goya so it's great and we're excited to get to work!

Our District:

As for the change in Mission Presidents - I haven't given much thought to it but I'm getting pretty good at readjusting since this will be my 4th. But change is good? Right?

I saw a picture of Braeden that made me super happy. He looks healthy, happy and full of joy. It makes me super excited to see how good he's doing and you're right, maybe in a little while we can take another family trip to all the church history sites. I promise that I'll enjoy it a little more. (Sorry about being a butt last time.)

As for Kenzie, my rule still stands! Just because you're getting a driver's license DOESN'T MEAN THAT YOU CAN KISS BOYS. Got it? :) #overlyprotectivebrother

You know . . . it's funny because all day I've been thinking about what you shared with me and it's true. People either choose to follow the Savior and THEN feel the blessings or not. Sadly, many people choose the latter. It's always hard to work all day and feel as if nothing is happening. I had a little "Why is this so hard" moment this week. After 15 months you'd think that I'd be used to getting turned down. Sadly a few weeks ago all of our progressing investigators told us that they didn't want anything to do with the church and peaced out. Since then, we've been contacting a ton of people and talking to a ton of people . . . but nobody seems to want to change.

(The sign says "Don't throw trash in the canal"! haha)

One day when we had been contacting for a few hours we stated talking to this lady outside of her house and she gave us another lame excuse about why she couldn't talk to us so I asked her if she knew WHY we were called Mormons. Then I asked her if it would be alright if I quickly explained the question - mostly so I could leave her with some part of my testimony. I pulled my Book of Mormon out of my bag and showed it to her and began to explain about the book. She admitted that it was a book that testified of Jesus Christ but couldn't agree that it was true so we left her with the book and our testimonies. I hope that maybe in a few years she will have some time to be prepared and that when another set of missionaries pass her way that she might be ready to accept the gospel.

Right after that, I don't really know what happened but that's when I just got so frustrated and broke down a little - asking why this work is so hard. We work from sun up to sun down and still nothing. On the bright side, we've heard some pretty good rejection lines. I should write a book! Here's one of my favorites:

So we helped this lady the other day. She was kinda older and had these two buckets in her hands - so we helped her carry them and in return she agreed to talk with us on Friday. As we were walking down the road she was outside buying gas from this man. So we're thinking AWESOME! She is outside, sees us, and is going to talk to us! Well, she lifted the gas tank into her house and paid the man. By the time we actually got close enough to greet her, the man had already left and she told us she couldn't talk to us because her arm hurt! hahaha We got a kick out of that one!

We ate some super good tacos this week and we ate asado with a man who doesn't want anything to do with the church but invited us over after church on Sunday for lunch. We brought Coke and ate meat until we were purple in the face! 4 plates of this stuff. It was SOOOOO good!

More than anything it's was just another great week being a missionary in Argentina. I love serving and doing what we do!